New York Daily News – by Nicole Hensley, Christopher Brennan, Sasha Goldstein
A man armed with a knife stabbed two people to death during a rampage in Taunton, Mass., that injured at least four, according to authorities.
The spree started when Arthur DaRosa crashed a car 40 miles south of Boston, leaving his vehicle and stabbing two people inside their home around 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn said the suspect then drove to a local mall and stabbed at least four more people at the shopping center.
A neighbor at the first scene said longtime resident Patricia Slavin, 80 was stabbed to death inside her home, she told the Daily News. The neighbor did not wish to be identified.
Slavin’s adult daughter was also stabbed, but her condition was not immediately known.
CHARLES WINOKOOR/AP
The suspect in a series of stabbings is transported on a gurney into an ambulance by medical personnel at the Silver City Galleria mall in Taunton, Mass., Tuesday.
The witness said a man she had never seen before was trying to carjack vehicles on the street before eventually fleeing.
She added that the “completely random act of violence” started when the man rammed into a truck after driving away from a nearby soccer field.
Quinn said the 28-year-old suspect — also a Taunton resident — ran his car into a door at the Silver City Galleria Macy’s before assaulting but not stabbing three people inside.
The DA’s office did not share details about those assaulted at the Macy’s.
almost just walked right into a shooting and stabing at the taunton mall good thing i was smokin a blunt walkin in pic.twitter.com/mvdPrxV5k1
— mAce (@alexcmace) May 10, 2016
He allegedly armed himself with a knife at a Bertucci’s Italian restaurant — also located in the mall — and attacked two others, including an unidentified 56-year-old man, who died at a nearby hospital.
An off-duty Plymouth County Sheriff’s Deputy, who happened to be eating at the Bertucci’s, ended the spree by opening fire at DeRosa, who later succumbed to his injuries, WBZ reported.
“I heard shots and saw cops loading AR-15s and I ran for my life,” one witness told WBZ. Another said shots rang out in the Bertucci’s restaurant.
There is “no known nexus to terrorism,” police told WBZ, though a motive is unknown.
CHARLES WINOKOOR/AP
Crime scene tape is seen inside the Macy’s at the Silver City Galleria mall in Taunton, Mass., Tuesday.
Slavin’s neighbor said that she was “shaken” by the violence.
“I am just relieved that he did not come into my house because I have two small children,” she said.
DaRosa, himself a father of two, had suffered from depression for years, his sister Kerri Devries told the Boston Herald.
She said that he had been hospitalized on Monday after recently talking about suicide, and talked about the devil telling him to do things.
His father, also Arthur DaRosa told the Herald that his son had been released from the hospital Tuesday morning and questioned why.
So let me get this straight. This guy armed himself at a restaurant with a knife, meaning he didn’t have one when he began his rampage, and he was shot by an off duty cop who was carrying a weapon. So the whole anti gun arguments of “only police and military, and only when ON duty, should be allowed to carry weapons” would probably have left more dead. Also, no laws against even knives would’ve been effective since he grabbed it in a restaurant. But hey, it’s clear the answer to stop such things from happening is more laws against the people for carrying weapons, right.?